GotVMail Review: Virtual PBX - Toll Free Numbers and Voicemail Evolved
May 4, 2008
We have been using GotVMail for over two years now and they deserve a review. A good review, at that. Their system has allowed us to run our customer support functions in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible for a startup company, in our opinion. Our customers never get a busy signal (just sweet, sweet jazz), it allows us to set up extensions for our departments, and we can forward calls to any phone number thus allowing us to be a virtual company all while accepting calls toll-free from anywhere. You can also hire their voice talent to record professional greetings starting at only $50 a page.
Click there: $10 Promotional Credit When you Sign-Up with GotVMail Through Us
The cost for GotVMail is well within any company’s budget for a phone system. They start at only $9.99 a month and it goes up from there depending on your usage and features. Their slogan is “The entrepreneurs phone system” and we have to agree that any entrepreneur who doesn’t utilize them to be more efficient would be silly - yes, silly.
Check them out here, e-mail us if you have specific questions, and no, they didn’t pay us to write this. We wrote this to help our readers and to promote a good product. We expect nothing less from our customers.
Tags: GotVMail, toll free numbers, virtual PBX, virtual voicemailThreadless - Custom T-Shirt Designs Done Right
April 16, 2008
For those of you who have never heard of Threadless - let us introduce you to one of the more creative, revolutionizing, and simply genius ideas the Internet has afforded us. The business model is simple and the execution is near flawless.
- Create a website that allows users to submit custom t-shirt designs.
- Allow the community to choose which designs they feel would make the best t-shirts.
- The top designs go into production and are sold on the site.
- The designers get a cut of the t-shirt sales (up to $12,500).
- Rinse and repeat.
The community skinnyCorp has created around Threadless has grown into a collection of designers and avid t-shirt wearers that exceeds hundreds of thousands.
Below is a video of the founders. As young entrepreneurs ourselves we thought it was interesting and have nothing but respect for the guys.
Tags: custom t-shirts, nude no more, ThreadlessWhen ad placement goes wrong. (PICS)
April 8, 2008
Who’s monitoring your ad placements? What’s it saying about your company?
Here’s a brand spankin’ new one from Digg today, click to view full-size:
Tags: photogenics, when ad placement goes wrong
Customers Can be Wrong
March 20, 2008
Here’s a great article by Alexander Kjerulf called “Top 5 reasons why ‘the customer is Always Right’ is wrong.” In our industry customer service is extremely important and we try to do our best. Sometimes–no matter what you do–there will be a “demanding jerk” who is absolutely hell-bent on being dissatisfied. The best thing really is to cut ties with the customer in a respectful manner. Let them know why they’re not a good fit for you and vice versa. It’s not worth demoralizing your loyal employees to save a customer who is anything but loyal.
Tags: customer service advice, customers can be wrongOne woman who frequently flew on Southwest, was constantly disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint.
She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere.
Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. They bumped it up to Herb’s [Kelleher, CEO of Southwest] desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’
In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’”
Stalkers rejoice: Twitter info.
March 6, 2008
We figured it was about time to setup a Twitter account so here you are: http://twitter.com/3tailer
Not much action yet and we’re not exactly sure how we’re going to use it but we’ll see what happens (erder tweets, anyone?).
How do you use Twitter in your business/life?
Tags: 3tailer twitterAmerican Express: Plum is the new Black.
March 4, 2008
Earlier this year we decided to get an American Express Plum Card to run most of our expenses through. To say the least, we are pumped about our card selection. The Plum Card has proven to be an amazing asset to our small business and a great tool for managing cash flow. Today we received a letter in the mail from AmEx OPEN. Below is a recap of the letter and the card in general.
“Congratulations, your charter member number is 9,518 of 10,000.” Susan Sabbott, President American Express OPEN
The small circulation actually means it’s currently more exclusive than the Black Card.
Current Benefits of the Plum Card (3-3-2008):
- Early Pay Discount - receive up to 2% back if you pay your bill within 10 days of receiving it.
- Basically, this increases your profitability by 2% just by running your expense through the card.
- Instantly decreases your PPC costs by 2%
- Defer Pay Discount - pay 10% of your balance and defer the remaining for 30 days with no interest.
- We haven’t tried this out yet and hopefully won’t have to but it could be useful if cash flow is tight.
- No Limit.
- Well actually, when you first get it they put a 32k limit on the first month but it grows as you continue to build and pay off high balances.
- Automatic discounts at certain restaurants, hotels, etc..
Upcoming features for the 10,000 businesses who made the initial selection:
- Opportunity to promote your business through PlumCard.com and Plum Card Advertising.
- Create a digital card with your business name on it
- They provide you with a customized Plum Card “Who’s getting one?” arrow to display on your own business website
- Opportunity to be on the Plum Card advisory board
- Let them know how to make the card better
Check out the scans of the letter we received regarding the above upcoming rewards of this awesome card.
Anyone else have it?
Tags: american express plum, amex plum cardDigg Implements the $1M Idea: non-www 301 Redirect
February 25, 2008
http://www.digg.com - check it out! The developers over at Digg have finally listened up to us SEOs that are so often hated on their site. Digg.com has enormous potential to gain traffic from search engines with all the constant flow of user-generated content. Until now they haven’t been able to fully take advantage of this as both http://www.digg.com and http://digg.com displayed in browsers. By taking full advantage of their link juice they should be able to eventually rank better for lots of broad and long-tail searches.
One problem though, they did the Web 2.0 non-www redirect to digg.com without the www, not the other (proper) way around. All their pages are currently indexed in Google with the both versions (click here and here) so expect the former to drop lots in pages indexed and traffic for a brief while. Not to fear though, with as any links as an authoritative social media site like this has, they should rebound quickly and the issue should sort itself out.
Here’s a few posts about the idea from a while back:
Tags: digg implements non-www 301Digg Button Buggy at 2 “Diggs s”
February 13, 2008
I just noticed this while digging some random stuff on the Upcoming page and found this little bug. When a submission has 2 diggs the button says “2 diggs s” (click the screenshot). Try it for yourself and let the developers know by digging this up.
UPDATE: It only happens on the Overall Upcoming page of Digg.com, not when you have the Digg button on your website or on the submission’s actual subpage, so it looks like it is indeed a bug and not intentional. This has been tested in both IE and Firefox.
Tags: digg button broken
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